Democratic Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell joined Fox's Martha MacCallum Tuesday afternoon and while discussing former VP Kamala Harris' return to Michigan to campaign with US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, MacCallum asked Dingell if she was "concerned" about anyone in the "socialist" wing of the party that might campaign for president.
Dingell responded by reminding MacCallum about the fact that Republicans were calling Social Security "communism" back when her father-in-law, John Dingell Sr., was a co-sponsor and author of the original Social Security Act of 1935.
MACCALLUM: It looks like AOC is talking more seriously about potentially running. Is she somebody that you hope gets in this race? And how concerned are you about the socialist part of the equation that we're seeing with El-Sayed and with AOC?
DINGELL: You know what? I hate labels. Nobody... What do you call me? I mean, I could think about two different words people would call me. And I'm one of the leaders of Medicare-for-All.
My father-in-law, look I'll be honest, my father-in-law was one of the authors of Social Security and got called a communist at the time.
Do you think there's any senior right now that call Social Security communism? People are depending on that to get by to just live.
So, I hate all the labels and I think people have to run and what the issues are and what the positions are, and I'm gonna be very blunt, I have no candidate right now.
Dingell went onto defend bringing Harris in to campaign in Michigan before allowing MacCallum to pivot to more of their non-stop attacks on their favorite boogeyman, Hasan Piker.
I think we need to hear Democrats do this more often, but they should also force people like MacCallum to respond, which Dingell did not do here.
They also attacked her father-in-law as a communist and socialist for sponsoring the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill, which was a failed proposal in the 1940s to create a national health insurance system in the United States. Nothing ever changes with these people. Decades later and it's the same old playbook. That needs to be shoved in their faces every time they do this red-baiting and call it out for what it is.
